Gifts come in all forms. shapes and sizes. Some are meaningful and some are devoid of meaning. Some gather dust on shelves and others break and rust and become obsolete. The following list of gifts, however, are guaranteed to never rust or need upgrading, will never spoil or gather dust on shelves. These gifts, in fact, will keep on giving indefinitely.

Following are 10 such gifts your children are waiting to receive from you. They are inexpensive, for the most part. But there is a cost, a cost in the form of changes made to the parent giving them, perhaps in order to give them. Believe me, if given consistently, over time, they promise top dollar on your investment.

10 Gifts to Give Your Children that Will Change Their Lives … and Yours … Forever

1. Time

There is nothing so valuable as your time and there is nothing you can give that would mean more or says more clearly with unequivocal exactness, “You matter to me.” The lack of time spent, the missed games and missed family meals and missed school events send the opposite message.

If your children know you only as that old guy who gets mommy mad and shows up on weekends to watch sports in his underwear, you may want to reevaluate how you spend your time and what message it’s sending your kids.

Instead, first choose what message you want to send them. Then stop fighting the obvious and go hang out with your kids. Give them the gift of you. You just may find that you actually grow to like them a bit.

2. Attention

I’ve seen families where kids were routinely interrupted by adults and kids were routinely scolded for interrupting those same adults. The message is clear: Adults matter. Kids don’t. Have you seen a child repeat the word, “Dad … Dad! … Dad! … Dad! … Dad! … Dad! …” a thousand times because his dad would not stop what he was doing to even acknowledge his child was there?

We are constantly sending little messages to our kids that say, “I love you. You’re important. You’re wonderful and deeply matter to me.” Or we’re sending the message that says, “You’re bothering me. You don’t matter as much as other things in my life. I don’t like you. Go away.” Paying attention to your kids will do wonders to help them sense their own importance and live up to expectations placed in them in wonderful ways.

So pay attention to your children! Watching TV with them is certainly better than sending them off to their rooms to watch alone, but not nearly as good as sitting down to play a game with them, to interact with them at a deeper level. You just might learn a few things about your own kids from such strange and ancient rituals as talking with them.

3. Chores and Responsibilities

One of the most important gifts you can give your kids is the gift of responsibility. When my boy was 3 years old, he was already helping us take out the trash and clean his room and put his socks away. Now he does more as a 6 year old. He’ll thank us for it later.

As a high school teacher, I know kids who were never required to do much of anything around their own home. I know because I’ve asked. Such kids usually just don’t grow up the same as those who learn responsibility and how to work. A sense of entitlement is a difficult addiction to break when they’re older. It’s better never instilled.

4. Trust

I’m not asking for naiveté here. “Trust and check” is a good parental motto to live by. I know kids will be kids. But to constantly express your doubt and disbelief is to send an unmistakable message that you don’t think very highly of them.

Your parents may have doubted you, but you are not tied to your past. Choose to exhibit more trust in your kids. We all tend to rise to the level of trust placed in us, after all.

But again, don’t be naïve. Never place a kid in front of a computer late at night, isolated from the family in his room, for instance. That’s just an invitation to pornographic indulgence, perhaps addiction. My point is only to encourage you to find daily ways of saying, “You’re trustworthy.”

5. Patience

I know kids who literally believe their own parents can’t stand them. They painfully hold this belief because dad is impatient with them, flipping out over inconsequential stuff. When parents get angry at every little thing, children receive it as a statement that they are intolerable inconveniences.

This is not a message you would tolerate long from a friend. So why do we require our kids to tolerate it from us? Instead, exercise the respect and kindness of patience. They’ll notice. So will you.

6. Love

Infants die without it. You and I thrive with it. It sends such a profound message of worth and esteem to young hearts and minds. It breeds self-confidence and more love when it’s lavishly given.

When it’s withheld as a form of punishment (intended or not makes no difference), it’s reduced to a tool, a method of manipulation and loses its power to lift and sooth and strengthen the heart and soul of our children.

So love them openly and completely and demonstratively and unconditionally and in ways they can see and feel and trust. This will be a gift that repeatedly comes back to you over the years.

7. Commitment

Are you truly committed to your family? To your children? To your spouse? If not, you’re putting all of them in jeopardy. If you are committed to your family, they will feel it. You will prioritize them higher than other concerns and interests. This doesn’t mean that you’ll never work overtime or head out to help a friend in need.

There will certainly be times the urgency of others’ needs will be greater than any particular time with family. But in the long-run, it should be obvious where your heart and soul resides. It already is to your children.

8. If Married, Love their Mother/Father

It’s been said that the single most important thing a father can do for his kids’ psychological health and happiness is to love their mom. The opposite is true as well.

Let them see you hug and kiss each other. Let them see the two of you leave them to date each other. Let your kids see you laugh together and play together and hold hands and open her car door and speak tenderly to each other. Let them see you forgive each other and apologize and thank each other.

There is nothing more important that will increase the likelihood that your kids will marry well than this. There is also nothing more solidifying in a liquid culture of melting values or more stabilizing in an unstable world to your kids’ sense of confidence and security in and about your home.

9. If Divorced, Stay Deeply Connected

Some of you reading right now are already divorced. That’s fine. Don’t let that fact draw you away from your responsibilities as dad. You were dad to your kids before you were husband to your second wife (dads much more often than moms abandon their children to varying degrees after divorce, perhaps understandably partly due to custody decisions, but never excusably).

So honor that responsibility and stay as connected as your children will let you. Let them see that you yearn to be with them. That is a worthy gift of itself.

If you need a role model here, watch the Robin Williams movie, Mrs. Doubtfire. That kind of passion to be with his kids sends an unmistakable message worth sending. It’s a gift worth giving. Hopefully you won’t need to go to such extremes to give it!

10. Example

Be the man you want your kids to grow into. Be the woman you want them to become. Become the parents you hope they will be to your future grandchildren. That is a powerful gift to offer them. Be the kind of person who doesn’t have to hide shameful parts of his character for fear of his kids finding out. Be the kind of person they can look up to as a role model of what it means to be a man or a woman, to live with courage and honor and decency and kindness and love and forgiveness and character. If you don’t, they’ll learn anyway. It will just be the wrong lesson taught.

Afterthoughts

Parenthood is a serious business. There’s no business more important you can spend your time and energy building. It requires us to become the kind of person we hope our children grow up to be. It requires us to work on the inside. It requires us to constantly push forward, learning and growing and reshaping our lives as we find parts in need of reshaping.

I hope you are already giving many of these gifts to your kids. I also hope you will take a few of them out, polish them up a bit and re-give them this year.

26 Comments

Ken: There is nothing that says that someone loves you quite like the time they give you. When I child I had a father that was always there for them no matter what and that showed support and love. I am blessed to have a father that has always been there for me when he could be and I am also blessed to have a father that instilled responsibility into me. When I was younger, I hated my choirs, but now I see the reason behind my responsibilities. There are other people in my life that never had to do anything for themselves growing up and now they do not know how to be responsible and survive on their own.William Veasley recently posted … The Pursuit of Happiness

Ken: Yeah, you being a high school teacher I am sure you see it everyday. I was talking to my mother the other day and one of her friends is a teacher as well. Her friend told her that parenting is only getting worse because now whenever she calls a kid’s parents to tell them that the kid is falling behind, then the first thing the parents want to do is “run up” to the school and complain.
I know that if I was ever falling behind or needed help, my parents helped me or had my older sister to tutor me. I think now a lot of parents are still kids that worry about themselves more than their kids.

William, I think you hit the nail on the head with this observation: “I think now a lot of parents are still kids that worry about themselves more than their kids.”

Unfortunately, aging is not the same as maturing. And so parents want to have kids AND party AND stay out all night AND work AND have happy, respectful, loving children AND … Well, the list goes on. So kids get stuck in the grinding mill of that immaturity and selfishness.

Perhaps this is the same root cause to why some parents treat their children like best friends instead of their children. And why so many parents are so inclined to bail their kids out instead of letting them take responsibility for their own actions.

The type of parent that you described is the same type that I do not want to be. I want to live up to my last name and carry it with dignity, integrity, and respect. I am not going to be anything less than my father and that is by being a rightous person.

Yesterday at my job, it was almost time for me to go and one of my co-workers walked pass me and said, ” @#!*% ! My baby mama is outside waiting for me”.

I do not want to ever have a baby mama. If I ever say that sentence then I want to say my wife is outside waiting on me.

I believe there will be a place and a time for everything.

I guess, one day I just want to be someone my kids can look up to when they grow old.William Veasley recently posted … The Pursuit of Happiness

Hi Ken,
Great reminders …..we do forget at times. Been a Dad for 27 years and still working on it. Will fine tune myself for Father’s Day here in Australia, 2nd Sunday in September.
be good to yourself
DavidDavid Stevens recently posted … Humanity, the Beach & a million Thoughts…

Oh ain’t that the truth! I need reminder more than the next guy, for that matter. Congrats on being a dad for so long. I’ll have been one for 22 years at the end of September. And what a learning experience fatherhood is!

Ken – although I’m not a parent, this post was a great reminder to me to be thankful for my parents and all they have been to me. I hope you had a great Fathers’ Day celebration.Corinne Rodrigues recently posted … Never Lost

Thanks so much, Corinne. Parent or not, I think most of them applies well to any relationship we have of consequence to one degree or another.

Thanks for the Father’s Day wishes. It was a great day (except that my daughter was sick so I didn’t see her).

Most of us have lots to thank our parents for. Others can simply focus on the fact that at least they gave them life. I just hope fathers and mothers everywhere use days like Father’s and Mother’s Day celebrations to recommit themselves to being the best parents they can be. Such an important job that I think too many people take too casually. We prepare for meetings of infinitely less importance.

Numbers 1 and 2 I see all the time, at grocery stores or in the park, parents too engrossed in their cell phones to recognize a child requires attention. Leave your phones at home folks when you’re out playing with your kids. Whatever it is, it’ll keep. Celebrate the little beings that they are by valuing and respecting them.

We can all take time out of our days to focus entirely on the kids…. they’ll be so much better off for it. As will we.

Sadly, me too, Elle. Excellent counsel! I hope people scroll down and read the comments and stop to consider yours with seriousness and sobriety. Our little ones (and bigger teenaged ones) need us there so badly. They crave relationships with us even if it doesn’t seem like it. So many people were sold a bill of goods in the quality vs. quantity debates of the 1970 or so. The truth is that kids need the quantity in order to experience the quality.

I’m not a parent yet, but I so want to be a good one, following the advice you have given in your post.

It was brilliant! 🙂

When I was reading point 2 about attention, it reminded me of experiences I used to have as a child. I used to want to say things, but the adults around me would just talk over me. It felt like I wasn’t worth listening to at that age. Not good at all, for a young child.

Given what I know of you, my friend, I trust you’ll be a great parent.

Unfortunately, that is not uncommon, especially in some cultures, I’ve found. But that just gives the kids an opportunity to be a pioneer in the family, charting new ground, cutting new trails in the lives of the generation they will raise and love and teach and nurture and pay attention to.

So true, Ken. The greatest gift we can give anyone is our true presence. A big part of understanding our own marvelously made nature is attuning our mind with universal mind.

Understanding our marvelously made self enables us to act with full presence of mind. Awareness of this power inspires us to concentrate our powers of mental attention on worthy objectives. The best way to share this power is to acknowledge and appreciate others for the good they bring to our life. What a great gift to give ourselves! It brings out the best in others and ultimately brings out the best in us.

There would be such a powerful increase in our collective joy if more people were “to concentrate our powers of mental attention on worthy objectives.” Thanks so much for your positive message. Wonder what would happen to the world if we all woke up one day recognizing our own and everyone else’s “marvelously made nature.”

So right, Ken. I try to lead my kids by showing them what to do. Telling them hardly ever works. You know how kids block everything they think is an order or an instruction. Your life is always the best example.

If you ask them to lie for you they will lie to you. If they see you getting drunk, they won’t heed warnings about addiction etc.

As you also said, having parents who love each other provides such stability for our kids. It’s too late for me where good parenting is concerned. However, I want to give my kids something totally opposite.Anne recently posted … Confidently Claim Blessings

There just is nothing like example to teach others. Words only go so far, and so far less if they are not driven there by virtue of the example of the person saying them. And you’re right about both the positive sides of example and the negative side too. The number one predictor that a child will grow up to be a smoker is if the parents were smokers. Good and bad examples are followed.

I love that you were able to come from a background like yours and totally change the trajectory of your life and do some truly amazing things with it, especially within the four walls of your home.

A really helpful and true list of some of the most important emotions which kids need from their parents. These are really the most common circumstances which a kid could need for a whole and mental healthy childhood. I really like your point on patience, some parents use to forget about it because they got tired from the work and stress of the everyday life. But our children really deserve some patience!Klara recently posted … Ein Ausflug nach München

You’re so right. It really is easy after a long day at work, mentally and/or physically drained, to let your guard down and let the little moments of frustration and anger and impatience slip out. But our kids, those most vulnerable to our moods, shouldn’t have to pay that price.

We sometimes treat everyone better than our own family members. Strangers are often given more respect than our children. But it should be the opposite.

Easier said than done, of course, especially for people who have built a habitual life around those patterns. But so important to break them down and create new patterns based on a new attitude that elevates the family above the stranger.

i glad you brought that topic to attention Ken
many of the psychological disorders grown ups suffer from result from the way they were treated when they were children
your post is extreemly valuablefarouk recently posted … How to get over dog phobia

I once heard a psychologist out of USC (or was it UCLA?) say that successful parenting is passing down 20% fewer neuroses to their kids. I also heard it said that adulthood is the process of learning to recover from childhood.

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About Me

My name is Ken Wert, the founder of M2bH. My purpose here is to teach you how to live a richer life of greater purpose and meaning, of mind-blowing possibility and deeper, more soul-satisfying happiness than you ever dreamt was possible. Join us on this happy adventure as you learn how to unlock your hidden potential to enjoy the rewards of a life well lived. Read more ...